Historic vote on women bishops put in jeopardy as senior female clergy say concessions would make them second-class citizens

Opposed: Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin is among the female clerics to say the measure undermines women priests

Reforms to allow women to become bishops, which were expected to be approved by the Church of England this week after 12 years of bitter debate, are in disarray.

Some of the Church’s most senior female clergy have denounced the proposed legislation for giving their opponents concessions which they say would make them second-class citizens if they were made bishops.

A final vote on the historic measure, which would pave the way for women in mitres within two years, is the main item at the Church’s ‘Parliament’, the General Synod, which starts a five-day meeting in York on Friday.

But the last-minute concessions, slipped into the legislation by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his colleagues in the House of Bishops to assuage the concerns of traditionalists, have provoked such a backlash the vote is likely to be put on hold or even thrown out.

In a powerful intervention, 17 of the Church’s most senior female clerics, including four cathedral deans, eight archdeacons and the Speaker’s Chaplain in the House of Commons, the Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, urged Synod members to reject the legislation in its current form.

In a strongly worded letter, they said they had been ‘dismayed’ by the concessions introduced last month, which undermined women ‘so profoundly that we are now unable to support the measure’s passing’.

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They have objected to the proposal that traditionalists could ask to be ministered to by a male bishop who shares their objections for such things as confirmations, even if they lived in a diocese under the authority of a female bishop.

The House of Bishops inserted the proposal because of fears traditionalists, a significant minority, could desert the Church.

The pro-women bishops campaign group, Watch, yesterday launched a petition to increase pressure on the Synod, and now bishops who supported the concessions are changing their minds.

One said: ‘If we are to avoid a debacle that I believe would be a catastrophe for the Church, the House, of which I am a member, must think again.’